La empleada escribió bien mi nombre, pero se equivocó con el apellido de mi madre.

In Spanish, common nouns often need an article, just like in English.

• la empleada = the female employee / the clerk
• Just empleada would usually sound incomplete here unless it were part of a different structure.

Also, empleada is feminine, so it takes la. If it were a man, it would be el empleado.

Empleada literally means female employee, but in context it can also sound like the clerk, the staff member, or the woman working there.

So depending on the situation, a natural English translation might be:

• The employee
• The clerk
• The staff member

The important point is that it refers to a woman.

Escribió is the preterite, which is used for a completed action in the past.

• escribió = she wrote
• escribía = she was writing / she used to write

Here, the sentence refers to one completed event: she wrote the name correctly on one occasion. That is why escribió is the natural choice.

Because bien is modifying the verb escribió.

• escribió bien mi nombre = wrote my name correctly / wrote my name well

In Spanish, adverbs like bien often come after the verb. That is very normal word order.

Literally, bien means well, but in this sentence it is often best understood as correctly.

So:

• escribió bien mi nombre = she wrote my name correctly

Using well in English is possible, but correctly sounds more natural in this context because we are talking about spelling or writing a name accurately.

Spanish often leaves out subject pronouns because the verb ending already shows who is doing the action.

• escribió already tells you it is he/she/it wrote
• se equivocó already tells you it is he/she/it made a mistake

Since la empleada is already mentioned, adding ella would usually be unnecessary.

Pero means but.

It connects two contrasting ideas:

• La empleada escribió bien mi nombre = she wrote my name correctly
• pero se equivocó con el apellido de mi madre = but she made a mistake with my mother’s surname

So pero introduces the contrast.

The verb is equivocarse, which means to make a mistake or to be mistaken.

So:

• se equivocó = she made a mistake / she got it wrong

Without se, equivocar usually means to confuse, to mislead, or to cause someone to be mistaken, depending on the structure. In this sentence, the reflexive form equivocarse is the correct one.

Here, con means something like with or regarding.

• se equivocó con el apellido = she made a mistake with the surname / she got the surname wrong

This is a common structure in Spanish:

• equivocarse con algo = to make a mistake with something

Yes, you may hear equivocarse en in some contexts, but equivocarse con is very common when talking about getting a particular item wrong.

For example:

• Se equivocó con mi nombre.
• Se equivocó con la dirección.

In this sentence, con el apellido sounds very natural.

Because the speaker is saying my mother.

• mi madre = my mother
• su madre = his/her/your/their mother, depending on context

Since the sentence already says mi nombre, it makes sense that the speaker continues with mi madre.

Spanish usually expresses possession with de rather than with an apostrophe structure like English.

So:

• el apellido de mi madre = literally the surname of my mother
• natural English: my mother’s surname

This is completely standard in Spanish.

Because each noun normally needs its own possessive.

• mi nombre = my name
• mi madre = my mother

Spanish does not usually let one mi automatically cover both nouns in a sentence like this. Repeating it is normal and clear.

More or less, yes, but there is an important cultural note.

• apellido = surname / family name
• In English, last name is common
• In Spanish, surname is often the safer translation

In Spain and many Spanish-speaking countries, people commonly have two surnames, so apellido does not always match the English idea of a single last name exactly.

The accent marks show the stress and also distinguish the past-tense forms.

• escribió = he/she wrote
• equivocó = he/she confused / made mistaken in non-reflexive use, but here part of se equivocó

In these preterite third-person singular forms, the stress falls on the last syllable:

• es-cri-BIÓ
• e-qui-vo-CÓ

The written accent helps show that pronunciation.

Yes, somewhat. Spanish word order is flexible, but the original version is the most natural and neutral:

• La empleada escribió bien mi nombre, pero se equivocó con el apellido de mi madre.

You could emphasize things differently, for example:

• Mi nombre la empleada lo escribió bien, pero se equivocó con el apellido de mi madre.

But that sounds more marked and less neutral. For a learner, the original sentence is the best model to follow.